Why the catastrophic failure of the Israeli security system does not make sense

by Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner

Eastern Creeks, Seminoles and Chickasaws are often recruited out of high school to serve the U. S. military in specialized capacities that don’t involve direct supervision by upper tier officers. I took the oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, 10 days after turning 18. Two Naval officers had come to my high school to specifically offer me a contract to become a US Navy Science and Engineering Officer, several months earlier. We are proud of our Native American heritage, but still today have many inherited talents to offer for the future of our nation and world.

Like many of you readers, I have watched repeated descriptions of how Hamas guerillas quickly “overwhelmed” the border security systems of Israel and then massacred civilians on the other side. The national media seems content to merely to parrot that explanation. I am just not buying it. Israel supposedly had the most sophisticated security system in the world. If it failed catastrophically, then none of us are safe.

I don’t claim to know what really happened, but will briefly describe why you should not believe that the talking heads are saying “the whole truth and nothing, but the truth.” My article is not intended to express the relative morality of the Israelis and Palestinians, but rather to explain the technical issues so readers will be able to better assess statements made by the news media.

On the other hand, I personally loathe the barbarity committed against innocent civilians in Israel, a few days ago by demonically-possessed Hamas Madmen. It should also be understood that they do not represent all Palestinians.

I have personal knowledge about these things. My initial assignment in Sweden was keeping watch on a Black September terrorist cell down the hall in my apartment building. Four months later, Black September terrorists butchered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. I was there, on the second day of the attack.

Background

As soon as I finished all classwork required for receiving a M. S. in Urban Planning from Georgia State University, I was hired by James Wright Associates in Midtown Atlanta. I finished my thesis and graduated, while employed fulltime. JWA had a contract with the National American Indian Housing Council to provide planning assistance to tribal housing agencies around the entire United States. I was initially hired to be the token Injun in the company, responsible for coordinating those services. However, soon after officially graduating from GSU, I was promoted to being Director of Design and Physical Planning for the entire company.

The primary issues with most tribes were crime prevention and protecting the safety of residents. We used a combination of landscaping design, architectural design and surveillance technology to mitigate those problems. Successes with the tribes led to many more comprehensive security contracts with conventional housing authorities, local governments and private developers. Those contacts with local officials led me to having the honor of preparing the first Comprehensive Plans for Charleston, SC, Auburn, AL and Opelika, AL.

The basic principals have not changed

A vast array of security technologies was developed during the Vietnam War by the United States and taught to us midshipmen. The key elements in a surveillance system in the mid-1970s for buildings and communities were physical barriers, lighting, motion detectors, ground vibration detectors, 24/7 video cameras and forced entry detectors. On some larger buildings, we also specified small roof-mounted radar units, which would detect tornadoes and flying objects approaching the structure.

These are the same features that the Israeli government uses in separating its population from Palestinian communities. These days, however, they also have satellite surveillance of their entire nation, plus around Gaza they mounted robotic machine guns along the border.

In those times, we were dependent on security guards to monitor the TV screens connected to the cameras and motion detectors. Nowadays, governments and building owners also have computers with artificial intelligence that serve as backups in case a security guard is absent or incapacitated. Both back then and today, these monitoring stations were and are connected to regional or national security offices. I have no doubt that the monitoring stations along the Gaza border were connected 24/7 to the offices of Shin Bet (Israeli National Security) in Tel Aviv.

Both back then and today, if a motion or ground vibration detector sensed an intruder or if a communication cable was cut or if a wall/door was breached, a blinking red light and loud sound would alert the security guard to look at specific TV screens. Other monitoring stations and the central security office would also be instantly alerted.

Did Hamas or Russian FSB agents sneak into Israel before the main attack and murder all the security monitoring personnel along the border? I don’t know. If so, wouldn’t Shin Bet’s main operations center go bananas, when all their IDF intelligence assets suddenly went silent? One would think that the monitoring stations would be equipped with devices that set off alarms everywhere in Israel, if explosions or gunfire occurred in the heavily guarded (with weaponless soldiers) surveillance compounds. Again, I don’t know.

Large scale invasion is no excuse, whatsoever

Our era’s security systems have become so sophisticated that if the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning in our semi-rural county, a computer in the county’s Emergency Center automatically and instantly telephones a warning to all residences within the projected tornado’s path. The computer also turns on all tornado sirens at the appropriate fire stations. It operates 24 hours a day, whether or not a human is present.

Multiple breaches of the Gaza Wall, the cutting of communication cables along it length and the vibrations caused by numerous vehicles . . . not to mention the subsequent explosions . . . should have made all the monitoring screens in Israel light up like Broadway in New York City.

The news reporters are lying. Cutting communication cables to security monitors does not make security monitors useless. It makes them go bananas with blinking lights and irritating sounds for the locations, where communications have been cut.

Yet . . . Israeli’s government officials and the news media are telling us that regional police stations, the Israeli Defense Forces and Shin Bet had no knowledge that the Gaza Wall had been breached until after many men. women, children and babies had been slaughtered by Madmen. The entire police force of one Israeli town were massacred inside their fortified police station, before any warnings went out to the public.

I think the most bizarre statement coming from the media is that IDF border guards were unarmed, when attacked by Hamas commandos. Have you ever heard of any military border guards in anywhere in the world not carrying weapons, when on duty? For over 80 years, Israel’s borders have seen countless attacks and firefights. The soldiers were not carrying weapons?

Remains of the World Trade Center Hotel

Israel’s 9/11?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, have repeatedly described the horrific events of the past few days, Israel’s 9/11. There are different ways of interpreting their statements.

It is well-documented that the USAF general in charge of the defense of Washington, DC ordered all interceptor fighter pilots to fly east over the Atlantic Ocean and not turn around till ordered so. The traitorous general then ordered the radar units, which control the anti-aircraft missiles and Gatling guns, protecting the Pentagon, to be turned off. A few weeks later, he was supposedly the only passenger killed, when a Washington commuter train had a minor crash.

In late July 2001, my sister called to say that she was flying to Atlanta to visit us on September 11. I told her not to come that day because there was probably going to be terrorism, involving passenger jets on the 11th. She took my advice.

A girlfriend of mine was staying at the WTC Hotel when the attack occurred. She was supposed to be at a meeting in one of the towers, but a telephone call from her mother had delayed her enough to be in her hotel room, when the first jet hit a World Trade Center tower. On the phone, I listened to her eyewitness accounts of what I was watching on the TV screen. She wept uncontrollably, when the first tower collapsed as she watched all of her friends up there dying.

After the first tower collapsed, a steel beam crashed through the wall of her room. She screamed that she had to get out of the hotel now. She was going to call me, when safely away from the disaster. She was killed by the collapse of the second tower.

Guess, whichever Georgia cops were were monitoring my phones illegally the day that my sister called, freaked out. As soon as Janice hung up at the WTC Hotel, I began hearing matter-of-fact chattering between John and Frank. Both had Midwestern or military accents. They were not local cops.

However, one of them had pushed the wrong button, whereby I heard them, but they could not hear me. John asked Frank if they had hit the Pentagon yet. He said no. The matter-of-fact tones of their voices shifted to giddiness when the second tower fell. They were celebrating a successful operation! Soon, I heard one of the men utter a profanity and the accidental connection was cut off.

Now you know!